From Merriam-Webster Dictionary. - - "Karma" - - "The force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence."
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I do not buy it.
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This is the ultimate let-the-filthy-ruler or crooked-ass-politician (Henry Kissinger for example) who has committed all kinds of atrocities off of the hook doctrine. Christianity shares the same fault, one of a huge number of faults, in that it holds that people will be rewarded or punished in the afterlife. It takes the responsibility away from society for punishing such behavior in the here and now, and sublimates it to some abstract non-existent realm . . . . . and, who exactly do you suppose it serves? . . . ALL of those people who do bad things. As long as you believe that they will be punished in some "future existence", you are a lot less likely to hold them accountable in the here and now . . . . and were exactly does that get them? No surprise that those in power have so much to gain from doctrines like these, and no surprise that they do what they can to perpetuate and support such belief systems.